It's been the cause of many a debate and much controversy since its inclusion in the DirectX 9 specification, but it appears that with Windows Vista on the horizon, and a new version of DirectX to appear alongside it, that partial precision hints (aka FP16) are finally dead as of DirectX 10. This probably won't come as much of a surprise to most, as we have already seen a tightening of the precision requirements between Shader Model 2.0 and 3.0 as FP32 became mandatory for such parts, so it seems that Shader Model 4.0 will simply finish the job by removing the requirement of or support for partial precision.

Elite Bastards